Delhi's Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, moved a vote of confidence in the Assembly on Friday, just before his scheduled court appearance in response to an Enforcement Directorate complaint for failing to attend summonses related to the excise policy case.
The proposal will be discussed in the Assembly on Saturday with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party MLAs and Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri present, as seven out of the eight BJP legislators were suspended for the rest of the session.
This was due to alleged interference during the Lt Governor's address on Thursday.
This is the second time that the Kejriwal government has sought a trust vote in the 70-member Assembly. In the current Assembly, the AAP has 62 MLAs while the BJP has eight.
Kejriwal while tabling the motion said, "Two MLAs had come to me saying they were contacted by BJP members offering them Rs 25 crore each. They were told that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be arrested and the government will be toppled."
"They were also told that the BJP is in touch with 21 MLAs. They have made multiple attempts to approach our MLAs under 'Operation Lotus'. Even this time, our MLAs refused to budge," he added.
Kejriwal stated that the AAP verified the allegations with all of its MLAs and discovered that seven legislators were approached, but none of them accepted the offer.
He asserted that the Delhi excise policy case was unfounded. Additionally, Kejriwal's close associates, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, are currently incarcerated in relation to the excise policy case.
"This so-called liquor scam is not a scam. The only aim is to topple the Delhi government by one means or another. AAP leaders were arrested under the guise of the scam. But even this effort was not successful. Not a single MLA of ours has defected and all our MLAs are still with us," the chief minister asserted in the House.
He stated that the BJP is aware that it cannot win elections in Delhi, which is why they are employing various strategies to overthrow the AAP government.
"To show that none of our MLAs have defected, I present this resolution, 'The House expresses its trust in the cabinet'," he said.
Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri claimed that Kejriwal, despite having the support of 62 MLAs, was bringing the trust vote motion that showed his confidence was shaken.
"Not only this. Even before the trust vote is presented, they are so afraid of just eight BJP MLAs that they got seven of them suspended," he alleged.
Bidhuri said it was surprising that Kejriwal was tabling a confidence motion alleging BJP of trying to poach AAP MLAs, but was not presenting evidence of it to the police that has already given him a notice in this regard.
Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel said the discussion on Kejriwal's confidence motion will be held on Saturday.
The Delhi court has summoned Kejriwal to appear on February 17 in response to a complaint from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) regarding his failure to attend summonses in a case related to excise policy.
The court observed that it appears Kejriwal was "legally bound" to comply with the summonses according to the law.
The Enforcement Directorate took legal action when Kejriwal failed to attend five summonses from the probe agency regarding a money laundering case linked to Delhi's liquor policy.
This week, the ED issued a sixth summons for Kejriwal to appear for questioning, setting the date for February 19.
